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CNN slammed for claiming gender can't be identified at birth, Internet says 'look below waist for insight'

This comes after South Dakota State Legislature rejected Gov Kristi Noem’s 'style and form' veto of House Bill 1217 that would have barred transgender athletes from participating in women's sports

CNN is being dubbed as 'straight-up activists' for a new report the media giant published. The article by the portal that managed to leave more than just a few eyebrows raised on Tuesday, March 31, declares "there is no consensus criteria for assigning sex at birth".

The article is a straight news report on issues surrounding a transgender athlete playing women's sports. But that one particular line has left Twitter so shaken, they are flocking to the micro-blogging site to slam this outright 'insanity' as some of them call the report. Others are pointing out how something like this passes off as straight news.

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The article was published by CNN's breaking news and politics reporter Devan Cole and is headlined: "South Dakota's governor issues executive orders banning transgender athletes from women's sports." This comes after South Dakota State Legislature voted on Monday, March 29, to reject Gov. Kristi Noem’s "style and form" veto of House Bill 1217 bill by a 67-2 vote. This measure would have barred transgender women and girls from participating in women's sports at the college and below levels altogether.

In Cole's report, he writes that the orders "do not explicitly mention transgender athletes," but instead "echo of the transphobic claim, cited in other similar legislative initiatives, that transgender women are not women." The CNN journalist also adds how "biological sex," is disputed by critics, and soon follows that paragraph which has now managed to leave Twitter in shocked splits. "It’s not possible to know a person's gender identity at birth, and there is no consensus criteria for assigning sex at birth," CNN’s Cole wrote. 

Soon it garnered immense traction on social media, with the Daily Caller's Mary Margaret Olohan tweeted: "From CNN (blanket statement, no source/quote): "​It's not possible to know a person's gender identity at birth, and there is no consensus criteria for assigning sex at birth." FOX News's Mollie Hemmingway tweeted in response: "Remember when the propaganda outlet CNN ran an ad campaign about ‘facts’ called ‘this is an apple, this is a banana?’ Maybe they should work on ‘this is a penis, this is a vagina.'"

Author Allie Beth Stuckey also tweeted: "We live in a literal clown world where the elites pretend not to know what it means to be a man or a woman. The only way to maintain your sanity is to reject this absolute nonsense everywhere you see it."

'Surprised it was published'

Stephanie Slade, editor of the outlet Reason, wrote, "I'm sorry. Is this supposed to be a hard news writeup?" Others also tweeted "I read his article, there was some much misinformation and opinion based, I was surprised cnn published it as news" Users were surprised that CNN "actually got this published," as one wrote, adding, "amazing." And most of them are of the opinion "CNN isn't a news organization. They are straight up activists." Others had too much fun taking jabs at CNN for this article, as another person wrote: "I’m not a doctor, @CNN but if you look just below the waist you may get some insight."